Allogeneic extracellular vesicles for enhancing CD8+ T cell response in colorectal cancer

Applications

• Colorectal cancer therapy
• Immunotherapy

Key Benefits & Differentiators

• Selective: Suppresses CT26 tumor growth, but not B16-F10 melanoma
• Well tolerated: Allogeneic MC38-424i TEVs did not trigger significant changes in peripheral blood cytokine expression

Technology Overview

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States and the second leading cause of cancer-related death. Alarmingly, incidence rates are rising among individuals under 50, highlighting an urgent and growing public health crisis. While immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) like nivolumab, pembrolizumab, and ipilimumab have transformed cancer care, their effectiveness in CRC remains limited. The majority of CRC tumors are microsatellite-stable (MSS), a molecular subtype that does not respond to ICI therapy. This underscores a critical need to overcome resistance mechanisms and enhance T cell infiltration into tumors.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed an innovative strategy to address this challenge. By engineering extracellular vesicles (EVs) from allogeneic tumor cells to lack miR-424, a key immunosuppressive microRNA that blocks T cell costimulation, they successfully stimulated strong CD8+ T cell responses and significantly reduced tumor growth in preclinical models of MSS CRC. This novel EV-based platform has the potential to turn immunologically "cold" tumors into ones that are responsive to treatment, offering new hope for CRC patients who currently have limited immunotherapy options.

Phase of Development

Desired Partnerships

• License
• Sponsored research
• Co-development

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Researchers

• Subree Subramanian, MS, PhD Professor, Department of Surgery